This week we had a three days presentation-seminar at the Asian Institute of Technology. It was such a good feeling to sit in class again, to work in a more interactive way, discuss opinions and practice presentations with immediate feedback from the others. An activity which you learn from faster than from the normal course of office life which I perceive as rather grey. Though colleagues at my work are cheerful, the matter interesting and the walls are painted yellow, it is simply not exciting and not exactly what I want to do in the future. And the more I experience from the practice of official development assistance and learn about institutional aspects of it, my opinion becomes even more critically towards its legitimacy. I don’t know if it creates sufficient positive impact for the poor in those countries here or if the aspect of it as a money-making-machine is just overwhelming. Vietnam has the second largest economic growth in the world after China. Maybe the elite here should take more responsibility for the country, and assistance should be limited to knowledge transfer and be even tied stronger to political and institutional reforms. However, all these are difficult questions which aren’t easy to answer – especially not in a blog like this.
tea-break with the guys from the team
Personally, I am still keen to do something in Corporate Responsibility and Business Ethics. A completely new field for me. Following it will require a heavy realignment in near future. And maybe this means learning more before starting a regular job. A professor with whom I had made an appointment after we received our certificates listened to me three minutes and, as Jens did, recommended me to do a PhD. But this might compromise my plans to make money as fast as possible, in order to get more settled. So probably I will again have to find ways to combine academics with work. Now that my final exams and the MA thesis are imminent, I have to bear a higher responsibility, for myself and for my environment. To be honest, I still feel rather youthful than adult. I still hate suit and tie and it is – as silly as it sounds – very difficult to change this. My boss commented on my appearance during the feedback session in the seminar: “He looks like a gipsy”. I had worn jeans and hoody. Actually, one of the “gurus” of presentation, self realization and management consultancy, Dale Carnegi, had worn the same clothes on a photo that was shown to us.
the luxury gated Hanoi Club – venue for our meetings, for big business, pool and lake-golf
Life in Hanoi during wintertime is very much the same every day for me. Driving the motorbike is cold, food is not as tasty as in Saigon, I don’t know too many cheerful people here and stay much of the time in my small room. My health is not yet okay and thus it is mostly about work here. Sometimes I meet the German students from Bonn for dinner, but I didn’t come to Asia in order to meet Germans. I prefer Vietnamese, but there are not many who fit my “filter”. I use to go out with Kim Ngoc for a coffee-section what is always nice and inspiring….maybe I should in fact have become an artist.
view on one of Hanoi’s lakes during a “frosty” late-night coffee-section with Kim Ngoc
old meets new – valid for Vietnam maybe more than for other places
Once a week I practise my pronunciation with Long who became a friend and with whom I could imagine to work in the future. It might create good synergies; we are from very different backgrounds but still we can discuss anything and exchange opinions. At noon sometimes we use to sit in front of a small coffee shop in Bach Khoa District and chat while observing the students and people passing by.
vendors passing by around the campus of Bach Khoa University
And of course it is the traffic that becomes part of your life in urban Vietnam. You wake up with its noise, only excelled by the unbearable propaganda radio resounding through the alleys each morning. You go through it day by day and it costs your nerves and your lung’s alveoli. Unfortunately I have not yet taken a photo of one of those impressive situations when a large road is completely stuffed by hundreds of meters of motorbikes and smoke. But believe me, it exists here! What you see on the photo is just relaxed traffic…
relaxed traffic in Hanoi – there is often much more than a few Hondas
In three and a half weeks I will leave the office, bring the motorbike to the shop, pick up my luggage and go on to the airport in order to take the flight to Saigon. Transits on this year’s stay in Asia are planned very much in-time leaving out acclimatization periods. Changes are so fast. I will celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, with Thuy Hang, Be, and their family and will have 6 days with them in Ho Chi Minh City before I go to Germany via a 12 hours transit stay at Bangkok's new international airport. I am already curious about Germany.
Secretly I am missing the South…Saigon, Thailand, and especially Bali…I wish I could just spend one hour in the water, on my exciting surf break, with sun, warm liquid and green waves…dreaming of that life in Bali which I were allowed to taste for a couple of months…
